December 7, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers have gone 6-3 since making a coaching change after their 3-9-1 start. There are a lot of reasons that the team struggled early in the season. The mental lapses that led to goals against were numerous. The goaltending was subpar. The team’s shooting percentage was abysmal. The special teams were terrible.

Part of it was injuries to a number of important players. CEO Jeff Jackson recently told Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic that Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl were both playing through “some issues”. Mattias Ekholm, Brett Kulak, and Ryan McLeod all had injuries in training camp. Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark have both missed time already this season. Dylan Holloway continues to be on the shelf with a knee injury. Zach Hyman missed a game due to illness last week. Evander Kane and Darnell Nurse both took maintenance days on Sunday.

Everything seems to be coming back around though. They’ve now won five games in a row. There were underlying numbers that suggested the Oilers were going to start piling up wins eventually based on how they were playing. The one area that seemed the least likely to regress towards the mean was the penalty kill. The Oilers finished 20th in the league at 77% last season. They were 30th in the league at just 70% when the coaching change was made. They allowed at least one goal on the penalty kill in ten of the thirteen games before the coaching change happened. 

However, they have only allowed two goals on the penalty kill in their last seven games. The Oilers have killed off 25 of their last 27 penalties. That included a streak of twenty-one consecutive kills starting on November 20, 2023 against the Florida Panthers and ending in last Thursday’s win against the Winnipeg Jets. It’s a small sample size, but the penalty kill has suddenly become a strength.

Related: Jeff Jackson believes the Oilers can still dig out of early-season hole

What gives? Well, there are a couple of factors. First, new head coach Kris Knoblauch has only used three pairs of forwards on the penalty kill: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Derek Ryan, Brown and Janmark, and Warren Foegele and McLeod. Knoblauch talked about getting McDavid and Draisaitl involved at the ends of kills to ensure they’re not sitting on the bench for too long, and he talked about how there are nine or ten forwards that can all do the job. 

However, Knoblauch also talked about the importance of the penalty killers having that specific role and taking ownership in that role. “…[Y]ou get too many guys killing, it just takes away the ownership of performing well… when I know I’m up and I know it’s my responsibility to do it, you’re more invested and you’re going to do a much better job.”

It’s about getting emotional investment and buy-in from the players tasked with the role of penalty killing. Penalty killing is a tough job. It’s not one that many players enjoy doing. Knoblauch has taken a typically unpleasant role and gotten players to take ownership of the role. He said that they were upset when their kill streak ended when speaking to the media on Monday. They went out and killed off the next two in that game. The success of the penalty kill matters to the players that have been given the responsibility of killing penalties, and they are rewarding the coaching staff for putting faith in them. It’s a simple and subtle decision that is making a huge difference in the team’s results.

Knoblauch has also mentioned that assistant coach Mark Stuart is now running the penalty kill, and he has praised Stuart for the work he has done with the penalty kill. Stuart hasn’t made any major changes, but he has made one small but significant tactical change. 

Dave Manson implemented a new penalty killing strategy last season where the high forward was asked to protect a passing lane rather than a shooting lane. If the puck came up to the point man, the high forward would pressure the point man from a passing lane to the half wall as illustrated below:

The responsibility of the forward in the slot was to be ready to get into the other passing lane from the point to the other half wall if the point man passed the puck away from the high forward:

If the puck got to the half wall, the high forward would still protect that same passing lane to prevent the pass back to the point. The low forward camping in the slot was there to intercept cross seam passes.

The strategy was designed to create more turnovers high in the zone. The other benefit to this strategy was that forwards weren’t asked to block shots, which decreased the risk of injury. That’s why it made so much sense to have McDavid killing penalties last year. There was next to zero risk of him getting hurt by blocking a shot, and he was lethal when turnovers were created. The Oilers led the league with eighteen shorthanded goals last season, but ultimately finished 20th in the league on the penalty kill. The strategy was too susceptible to breakdowns.

Stuart has the high forward being a little bit more passive. The high forward is now asked to protect the shooting lane when the point man has the puck:

Should the puck move to the half wall, the high forward jumps into the passing lane from the puck carrier on the half wall to the point man:

That’s the only change. The result is that the forwards spend less time moving, and there are fewer switches. That leads to fewer breakdowns and fewer quality chances against. The passing lane from the half wall to the point man still gets covered, so the potential for turnovers is still there.

Jay Woodcroft and Manson are good coaches, but we have to give credit where credit is due here. A couple of small strategic changes made by Knoblauch and Stuart have fixed one of the biggest issues that was plaguing the Oilers early in the season. The puck is going in the net more and Skinner has picked up his socks, but the penalty kill’s revival has been a crucial aspect of the Oilers’ recent success.